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Old Style and New Style dates
Old Style or OS is a designation indicating that a date conforms to the Julian calendar, formerly in use in many countries, rather than the Gregorian calendar, currently in use in most countries. "Old Style" (OS) and "New Style" (NS) are sometimes added to dates to identify which system is used in the and other countries that did not immediately change to the Gregorian calendar. In Britain it is usual to map most dates from the Julian year onto the Gregorian year without converting the day and month. However because the start of the Julian year was not always (see New Year's Day section in the Julian calendar article), OS/NS is particularly relevant for dates which fall between the start of the Gregorian year ( ), and the start of the Julian year which was in England. Great Britain did not adopt the Gregorian calendar until , and it was not until that year that England officially adopted as the start of the calendar year. For example, according to the English calendar of the day, King Charles I was executed on Tuesday , . This date is usually written in modern histories as , , showing merely the modernised end of year. In fact a full conversion of the date into the Gregorian calendar is , , the date by which his contemporaries in some parts of continental Europe would have recorded his execution. Possible date conflicts For example, it is sometimes remarked that William Shakespeare and Miguel de Cervantes died on the same date, , , but not on the same day. England was still using the Julian calendar in 1616, while Spain was using the Gregorian calendar. Cervantes actually died ten days before Shakespeare. Because of the differences, English people and their correspondents often employed two dates, more or less automatically, as Benjamin Woolley observed in his biography of Dr. John Dee, The Queen's Conjurer. Dee fought unsuccessfully for England to embrace the 1583/4 date set for the change. Woolley wrote because of "the decision, England remained outside the Gregorian system for a further 170 years, communications during that period customarily carrying two dates, one 'OS' or Old Style, the other 'NS' or New Style." (173) Thomas Jefferson, for example, lived during the time England eventually converted, so his tombstone bore his birthdate in the Old Style, and noted them as such, at his instruction. By then the difference was greater than ten days. A further complication is that the start of the Julian year was not always but was altered at different times in different countries. For a long time the year in England began on (Lady Day), so for example Elizabeth I of England was recorded as having died on , (Old Style); this would be written , (New Style). Although this would correspond to , if fully converted into the Gregorian calendar, the month and day of a British event are normally not converted. For complete avoidance of ambiguity, historians can write dates in the ambiguous part of the year in slashed format, e.g. "March 24/April 3, 1602/1603". countries such as , , , and were first to change to the Gregorian calendar. Thursday, , was followed by Friday, , , with ten days "missing". Countries that did not change until the 1700s observed an additional leap year, necessitating eleven "missing days". Some countries did not change until the 1800s or 1900s, necessitating one or two more "missing days". changed from Julian to Gregorian Calendar on , JU where the next day was , GR. France used the French Republican Calendar from , GR to , GR. 1907.At the time, Poland was part of the Russian Empire]] In Russia, the terms "Old Style" and "New Style" have the same significance as elsewhere. The start of the year was moved to in 1700, but the Gregorian calendar was introduced there much later, already in the Russian SFSR — on , (Gregorian calendar). Hence the October Revolution of 1917 is so called, despite having started on under the Gregorian calendar ( calendar). Articles about the October Revolution which mention this date difference tend to do a full conversion to the dates from Julian to the Gregorian calendar. For example the article "The October (November) Revolution" the Encyclopædia Britannica uses the format of "October 25 (November 7, New Style);" to describe the date of the start of the revolution. Occasionally using different calendars has caused confusion between contemporaries. For example one of the contributory factors for Napoleon's victory at the Battle of Austerlitz was the confusion between the Russians, who were using the Julian calendar, and the Austrians, who were using the Gregorian calendar, over the date that their forces should combine. The mapping of new dates onto old dates with a start of year adjustment works well with little confusion for events which happened before the introduction of the Gregorian Calendar on , (in France). For example the Battle of Agincourt is universally known to have been fought on , , which is Saint Crispin's Day. But for the period between the first introduction of the Gregorian calendar , and its introduction in Britain on , , there can be considerable confusion between events in continental western Europe and in British domains. Events in continental western Europe are usually reported in English language histories as happening under the Gregorian calendar. For example the Battle of Blenheim is always given as , . However confusion occurs when an event affects both. For example William III of England arrived at Brixham in England on (Julian calendar), after setting sail from the Netherlands on (Gregorian calendar). To add to the confusion, the Battle of Boyne, which took place only a few months later in Ireland on "Old Style", is not mapped to "New Style" but is remembered as taking place on . The keeping of the recorded date (not a mapped date) for the anniversary of this battle has more to do with Protestants not at first recognising Gregorian dates, so they continued to celebrate the anniversary on their Protestant and now traditionally do so. Countries that used lunisolar calendars , , and started using the Gregorian calendar on of , , and , respectively.BAD LINK! They used lunisolar calendars previously. In these countries, the old style calendars were similar but not all the same. None of them used the Julian calendar. The Old Style and New Style dates in these countries usually mean the older lunisolar dates and the newer Gregorian calendar dates. Arabic numerals may be used for both calendar dates in modern Japanese and Korean languages, but not Chinese. Japan Japan started using the Gregorian calendar on , , locally known as "the first day of the first month of Meiji 6" (明治6年1月1日). The preceding day, , , was "the second day of the twelfth month of Meiji 5" (明治5年12月2日). The lunisolar Japanese calendar is no longer used except in very limited unofficial purposes, in which case 135° E of longitude is the modern reference point also used for Japan Standard Time (UTC+9), as opposed to Kyoto as the ancient reference point and the national capital until 1868. Korea Korea started using the Gregorian calendar on , , which was the 17th day of the 11th lunar month in not only Korea but also in that still used the lunisolar calendar. The lunisolar Korean calendar is now used in very limited unofficial purposes only. China The started using the Gregorian calendar on , , but the lunisolar is still used along with the Gregorian calendar, especially when determining certain traditional holidays. The reference has been a longitude of 120°E since 1929, which is also used for ( ). China, , , and all have legal holidays based on the lunisolar Chinese calendar, with the most important one being the . To visually distinguish old and new style dates, /T 15835-1995, General rules for writing numerals in publications, which is a national standard of the People's Republic of China, requires writing new style dates with Arabic numerals but old style dates with , never Arabic numerals. In Taiwan, even though new style dates are written in Chinese characters in very formal texts, it is now common to see Arabic numerals in new style dates in less formal texts. When writing old style dates, Chinese characters are usually used while Arabic numerals are considered very casual and strongly discouraged as in Mainland China. See also * Fiscal year Further reading * Details of conversion for many countries * Side-by-side Old style–New style reference Footnotes Category:Timekeeping Category:Time in the United Kingdom